PAPIs '16
closed

Calls and key dates

The call for proposals has officially closed. However, there are slots available for lightning talks (5') on October 11, and we may have gaps in the program open up – feel free to submit your proposal and we'll let you know if an opportunity arises.

June 18: Technical and Business Talks

July 10: Tutorials and Research Presentations

October 11-12: Main conference takes place in Boston

If you have not heard about the status of your submission after July 26, please contact us.

0. About the conference

PAPIs is the premier forum for the presentation of new machine learning APIs, techniques, architectures and tools to build predictive applications. It is a community conference that brings together practitioners from industry, government and academia to present new developments, identify new needs and trends, and discuss the challenges of building real-world predictive, intelligent applications.

PAPIs ’16 is the 3rd International Conference on Predictive Applications and APIs, featuring 3 tracks (Technical, Business, Research) and the 1st AI Startup Battle where the jury is an AI. The audience is a mix of developers, software engineers, all-round data scientists, machine learning specialists, researchers, decision makers, managers, strategists and innovators.

Presenting at the conference is a great way to share your learnings, showcase leadership on behalf of your organisation, and engage with your peers. We’ve had 700+ attendees come from 25 different countries to our 4 previous events, and even more people watch our presentations on YouTube.

Please read these guidelines all the way through for the best chance of having your proposal selected. If you have questions or concerns about anything you see here, please don’t hesitate to email us at cfp@papis.io.

We welcome practical presentations on a wide range of experience levels — from beginner-friendly how-tos to cautionary tales to deep dives for experienced professionals. We’re looking for a diverse and creative line-up of speakers, preferably with experience in public speaking.

Talks

We’re interested in hearing about innovative machine learning use cases in predictive applications and APIs. This can include domain-specific aspects (human-machine interface, decisions from predictions, real-world impact, ethics, etc.) as well as technical aspects (software engineering, architecture, data, performance measurement/monitoring, tools, etc.). We’re also interested in hearing your story: how you did it, challenges, and lessons learnt — do’s and dont’s.

Anything involving both APIs and machine learning should be highly relevant to the conference. Regarding predictive and intelligent applications, topics of interest include (but are not limited to) predictive applications in the industry (finance, insurance, legal, energy, healthcare, transportation, etc.), in technology (e.g. security, IoT), for decision making, for the office, and predictive applications for good.

Talks are 20-minute long, plus 5 minutes for Q&A. It may seem like a short time, but it allows for dynamic and focused talks that keep the audience engaged.

Tutorials

Tutorials are 30-minute long presentations that focus on teaching valuable skills (e.g. “how to do this in your organization”). They shouldn’t be product-oriented or rely on commercial software (otherwise please email sponsoring@papis.io for product workshop opportunities). Here are a few ideas of topics to inspire you — this list is by no means exhaustive and these are just ideas:

how to measure performance for model selection, live monitoring, and post-deployment validation

how to turn your data processing back-end into REST APIs

how to use churn detection in your organization.

Research presentations

The Research Track is dedicated to the presentation of new techniques, architectures, standards, frameworks and open source software to build predictive APIs, Machine Learning as a Service (MLaaS), and to facilitate usage of ML in real-world applications.

Startup pitches

Applications to the AI Startup Battle will be via a different platform (coming soon). You can pre-apply by contacting us with a short presentation of your startup, and you can sign up to our newsletter to make sure you get notified when applications open.

2. How do I write a good proposal?

Thank you for making it this far :) We will be receiving lots of proposals covering the same topics. They will be evaluated by our Program Committee (see our Team) on the basis of their novelty and/or significance and/or clarity of presentation. Reading the following will help you craft a proposal that stands out.

Start with a topic of interest to our audience (see above). Attendees have different levels of experience — from totally new to very experienced. Your presentation should either directly help them, or inspire/inform them about something they don’t already know. The core value to our attendees of what you’re presenting should be clearly stated in your proposal. What will they be able to do after they see your presentation that they can’t do now?

We believe that great presentations should be practical and focused. For instance, instead of presenting something general or showing a portfolio of things you / your company have done, it’s better to show one specific, unique thing in enough detail.

Try to cover some of the following in your proposal:

what makes your work novel

problems/challenges you’ve overcome or are currently facing

how you architected what you built and why

which results you got

how people are using what you’ve built and how it’s creating value for them

what you plan to do as future work.

Screenshots and live demos are appreciated to make your presentation more concrete and engaging.

Can I feature a particular tool or product?

It depends… Our objective is to ensure that PAPIs does not turn into a platform for pitching products/services/companies. Your presentation should provide practical information and be centered on real-world applications. The audience will be interested in hearing about practical integration for the use case being discussed, and unique features of the tool/product you’re featuring.

Some tips:

It is best to submit your proposal early to get our feedback and adjust before the deadline if necessary.

If you don’t represent the company/team behind the product, it would be great to hear why you chose the tool/product you are featuring rather than a competitor, and what your critical opinion is.

We want to increase representation of open source tools at the conference and we will dedicate some slots for them. In particular we’d like to hear about projects that make it easier to process data, to create and experiment with predictive models, or to operationalize them with APIs.

If your tool/product is commercial (and even if there is a free tier in your commercial offer):

You should make sure that your presentation is centered on a real-world use case and not on the product itself.

We reserve a limited number of slots for sponsored talks (subject to approval) where we are more flexible and allow presentations to be centered on products. That being said, it’s best to avoid sales pitches as our audience tends to dislike them. We invite you to write to sponsoring@papis.io if you want to book a slot and to tell us more about what you would like to present by submitting a proposal here.

3. Filling in the proposal form

Our proposal form has two fields that attendees will see on the program (title and abstract), and two fields that only reviewers will see (details and pitch). Please also use tags for reviewers to identify the type of proposal you’re submitting. Note that you can submit several proposals through our CfP application.

Remarks for Research Track proposals:

In addition to submitting the proposal form, please also send an (anonymized) extended abstract or a full research paper in PDF format, using this paper upload form. Please make sure the PDF file has the same name as your proposal.

Extended abstracts should have a minimum of 2 pages, and full papers can be up to 8 pages long, using the JMLR style. Extended abstracts should include references and comparisons to related work, but details of implementation can be omitted.

Title & Abstract

These are what attendees will see in the program. Title and abstract should be compelling and to-the-point. Tell a story. Why should attendees come to your presentation and what will they get out of it?

Details & Pitch

Reviewers will see your title and abstract, and also your details and pitch. Details is a good place to go into more depth about what you’ll cover. It’s a good place to put an outline, reveal the secret sauce, and explain any twists you’ll include in your presentation that may not be evident in the title or abstract. Please also let us know if you intend to include a live demo or live coding (and intended duration).

Pitch is a good place to tell reviewers why PAPIs needs this presentation, and why you’re the right person to give it at PAPIs. How will your presentation help the program, or fill a specific need? Why are you excited about this topic?

Please take care here to refrain from identifying who you are since our first round of review is blind, and we appreciate your efforts to respect that as much as possible.